by C. A. Bryers
Rainne’s silence persisted. She was turned away now, and Salla could already feel a widening distance between them.
“They did, didn’t they?” he asked, wishing he could take back his condemnation of the Order. “I’m sorry.”
Her chest lifted as she drew in a deep breath. “Some. Like what Afa tells me he did for you, they have only given him more time. But I have not given up. I will not give up.” She finally faced him again, but kept her eyes averted. “It is late. Put out the fire before you go to sleep, please.”
Moments later, Salla sat alone, watching the flames lick and snap in the darkness. The night seemed to grow colder in Rainne’s absence, and he couldn’t help but wonder if he should follow her inside in an effort to take back what he’d said. He didn’t take long to weigh his options. Even though he had only known her a matter of days, Rainne was becoming important to him. If she was to be the last friend he would know on this world, he didn’t want a few ill-chosen words to stand between them.
On his feet now, Salla stepped gingerly onto the porch, so as not to wake Ulong. The door was ajar, and he peered into the small den before entering. Illuminated by the dim glow of a pair of candles, Salla spotted the old man lying on the couch, eyes closed and mouth open as he slept. He was about to step inside when he stopped suddenly. A shape was there, just behind Ulong’s head.
Rainne.
She knelt there, head bowed low, hands placed on either side of her Afa’s head. She did not move save for the subtle shifting of her lips as she spoke soundlessly. What was she saying? A prayer for him? Something else? Whatever it was, it was not his place to interrupt. With silent footsteps, Salla slipped away to be enveloped again by the darkness of night.
8
One week later, Salla Saar was back at the skyport where his near-fatal episode had occurred. He’d been fading fast before he’d even stepped off the Veslyn, so seeing this place now was like seeing it for the first time.
“Thought this place would be a bit less shabby, considering it’s the main hub the Majdi out of Empyrion Prime use.” He cast a disinterested gaze along a row of streetside shops. “When you said your Afa found me in the Pan-Lo Tau, I figured at least I was dying in a better class of skyport.”
The Pan-Lo Tau Skyport was much larger in breadth than the one Del Triva and Del Topal shared. The vibrant blue of the afternoon sky was dotted with airships, some taking off, some landing, while others hovered hundreds of feet overhead as they waited for permission to land. On the far side of the single-level passenger and parcel reception buildings, a Skywing, similar in design to the one owned by his father, swooped low before activating its wing propellers for a vertical landing.
Salla did not feel at ease returning to this place. It was too crowded, too many people coming and going, and any of them could be Majdi. Considering their proximity to Empyrion Prime, he had to believe many of them were of the Order. Every time he started to relax somewhat, something set him off anew—a shoulder bumping his, or the ever-present feeling of being watched by eyes both nearby and afar.
“I cannot believe Orius got into Afa’s seeds. Nothing that can be swallowed is safe around that ch’nook, I think,” Rainne said with a laugh, weaving through the dense foot traffic of the skyport’s bustling open-air marketplace.
Salla only vaguely heard her as his eyes continued to dart anxiously in every direction. In the flow of people streaming through the market, he caught sight of a familiar face for the briefest of moments before it vanished. He blinked, nerves igniting anew as he tried to put a name to the face, but failed.
Rainne placed a hand around his waist. “Calm yourself, Salla. I understand you have a problem with the Majdi, but being in the presence of a few is not going to kill you. Besides, you need the exercise. So does Afa, now that he is feeling better, which is why we need to restock his seeds. He needs to get back to his garden, to be active.”
Her words offered little comfort. “I’ll keep my eyes open all the same.”
She shook her head. “You have yet to convince me with a good reason why you do not like them, Salla. Just like every word of your history, all you have given me are clever dodges and poor jokes. They are not evil people, you know.”
A mild tension ran between them, one that had been present since that night he’d hinted at his true feelings for the Order. Good times had not been in short supply in those days since, but it seemed Salla’s lack of openness where his past was concerned was becoming a sore spot for Rainne. Sooner or later, he would have to tell her. He wanted to have someone remember him in an unblemished, positive light when he was gone, and Rainne was his only hope for that wish to come true. But regardless of whether he told her the truth or not, that wish was fated to end in ruin, it seemed. Whether she ended up disgusted by his misdeeds of the past or by the stockpile of secrets he kept from her, there was no way to win.
“Look, there is Onapesh.” She pointed at a bedraggled-looking man with ash-colored knotlocks standing beside a vegetable cart, his expression one of boredom as he spoke into a comm. Grabbing Salla by the wrist, she led him through the stream of shoppers and travelers.
The man called Onapesh’s eyes sharpened into alertness upon their approach, and he hastily pocketed his comm. “Rainne, greetings. You grandfather is well?”
“Ulong-Afa is improving, thank you. His ch’nook ate all the seeds he bought from you two weeks ago, however. Here is the list of what he would like replaced.” She handed the man a narrow strip of paper.
Onapesh looked it over and gestured to the man behind the vegetable cart. Without a word, the other opened up a door at the back of his cart, pulling out small bags of seeds and placing them in a larger sack.
“Eh’thre tuk,” Onapesh snapped, and the vegetable vendor bagged the seeds more hurriedly. When the full bag was tied shut and extended to Rainne, Onapesh’s pockmarked and pouchy face broke into a lifeless smile. “Seven hundred please, granddaughter of my friend.”
Rainne smiled tightly in return, counting out her jiro notes before folding the bundle in half and handing it to Onapesh. “My Afa thanks you.” Without another word, she tied the seed pouch to her belt and walked away.
Salla jogged to catch up to her. “That exchange felt a little…illegal. Was it?”
Rainne shrugged, still walking briskly. “The seeds are imported from our homeland of Gaiatea. What is permitted in other lands is not always permitted here. Some of these are important ingredients for Afa’s medicines.”
As they walked through the market, Salla started to wonder. She had told him they had lived off the land after Ulong had taken her in, and he’d assumed that was how they continued to survive now. But what he had seen just moments ago didn’t mesh with that assertion.
“Legal or not, those seeds weren’t cheap. I can’t believe I’ve never asked what you did for a living.”
She glanced at him, her eyes stony. “Salla, you refuse to tell me the smallest detail of your life before I woke up to find myself in it. That triangular scar on your chest—the one that looks as if someone branded you with a hot iron, for instance—where did you get that?” Rainne waited a single beat before shaking her head in frustration. The breeze and her quickening pace blew down her scarf, and she pulled it back up with an impatient tug. “See? You will not tell me even that. So tell me why I should continue to spill my life out on the table for you? Look, I know I offered to share my bed so you could recover with comfort, but tonight I suggest you confide in Afa’s old cot. Consider it practice.”
The face Salla had spotted earlier in the crowd was there again, much closer this time. That same spark of recognition flashed through his mind, and in the next instant, the face was lost again amid the heads and shoulders of the dozens crowding the street.
“Can we talk about this later?” he asked, standing on his toes to try and locate the man again.
“I am tiring of it, Salla. I know we have not known each other long, but I have been giving, and getting nothi
ng in return. Why can you not—”
He grabbed her by the shoulders then, pushing his way through the torrent of people filling the busy marketplace. Crouching low, the two ducked into a sliver of space between a pair of tightly packed buildings. The narrow alley felt constrictive, allowing barely enough room for the two of them to stand face-to-face.
“Salla, what—”
Without thinking, he placed two fingers to her lips, absently noticing how soft they felt. He peered over the throngs from their place of concealment. Staring out at the man in the crowd, the glimmer of recognition Salla had felt earlier had turned into a dreadful certainty.
With a white bandage across his broken nose and an angry bruise covering an entire cheekbone, Adrik Usladislau was headed straight for them. The bearded Majdi protector Salla had incapacitated aboard the Veslyn looked left and right as he approached, his expression a disgruntled sneer, determined eyes scouring the faces all about.
In response, Salla was about to turn and head deeper into the passage between buildings when he shuffled to an abrupt stop. There was nowhere to go. Another building abutted the others, the cramped alleyway terminating in a stone wall. If that Usladislau Majdi ventured this way, they were trapped.
He steadied his breath, looking into Rainne’s questioning eyes. “He hasn’t seen us yet, I don’t think.”
“Who, Salla? What is going on?”
“I thought we were being followed.” An anxious sigh escaped his lips. “That man out there, the one with the broken nose. He’s a Majdi.”
With his face inches from hers, there was no missing the emphatic rolling of her eyes. “What of it if he is a Majdi? Salla, you have got to put away this paranoia of yours and realize the Ma—” Her words broke off when she looked out into the crowd, toward the bearded man. A moment later, her eyes shifted to stare into Salla’s. “He is looking for you.”
Pushing his way closer, the battered Majdi’s head continued to pivot to and fro. He was so near, Salla could fully see the extent of the damage he had apparently done aboard the Veslyn. A deep cut slashed through his right brow, and underneath, the milky white of his eye was now a dark, angry red.
Adrik Usladislau stopped where he stood in the middle of the busy street, nostrils flaring as his frustration appeared to be rising to a boil. He stared to the right, followed by the left, his gaze sweeping more than once past the niche where Salla and Rainne hid. For several long moments he remained fixed in place as the tides of people continued to wash past him. Finally, with a grunt of disgust, the bearded man stalked away, vanishing from sight.
Salla shot forth an explosive sigh, letting his forehead come to a rest against Rainne’s. “That was too close. How did he not see us? My luck isn’t that good.”
“Why is he after you?” Rainne asked with imploring eyes as Salla’s head pulled away from hers.
He hesitated, his mind a flutter of dissipating anxiety and noise.
She grasped him by the chin. “Tell me. Why are you so afraid? Afraid of the Majdi—afraid of letting me know anything about you?”
He let his forehead fall again with a light tap against hers. With his eyes closed now, he felt her face turn upward. Next came something soft brushing against his lips. The kiss was so unexpected, Salla’s reaction was as though he had been jolted with a charge of electricity. The surprise was replaced almost instantly by a gnawing feeling of shame.
The look on Rainne’s face was unmistakable. “Is something wrong?”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I can’t.” He closed his eyes again but at once felt her fingertips on his face, bringing them open once more.
She smiled up at him. “No apologies, Salla. I only ask that you tell me why.”
He hesitated again, but pushed past the barrier. “Before Ulong found me, before I even came to Mythili, I was with someone. I…think we were falling in love. Maybe we were already there, I don’t know. All I know is that I didn’t want to leave.”
“But you had to,” she said, and in her eyes Salla found a boundless reservoir of understanding.
He met her gaze more directly than even he expected. “Whatever we had, I don’t want to move on as if it meant nothing.”
“See?” Her smile radiated warmth. “Let your past see the light of day and you will find it is nothing to be afraid of. What you have told me today is a beautiful thing, Salla.”
His fingers traced a gentle line down the smooth skin of her face. “I didn’t want you to misunderstand. If I said I haven’t thought about you in that way, I’d be lying. There are times when I look at you, times that—”
She shook her head, her smile sweet. “For once between us, nothing more needs be said. Come. We have what we came here for.”
A swell of something strong and positive blossomed within Salla as they walked toward the rim of the marketplace where the crowds grew thin. It felt good—incredible—to have opened his doors to her even for that brief moment. Somehow, it allowed him to forget the implacable killing force within him, to bring back a glimmer of hope that maybe a future did exist for him. Perhaps Ulong’s remedies had been more effective than even the old man had imagined. Only two episodes had occurred since he’d woken with his new friends, and even those had been a weak shadow of his prior attacks.
The thought of it seemed to have alerted the senses that kept a vigilant check over the subtle changes in his body: small twinges he’d otherwise ignore or a vague spell of dizziness he’d more often than not attribute to the heat or some other factor. Now that he was paying attention to those tiny voices whispering of such anomalies he could feel there was something different. He did not know what, but like the other recent episodes, this too seemed small. Insignificant.
“So, how would you feel telling me something about you now? Tell me about this lucky girl. She was pretty, I imagine?” Rainne asked, swinging her ch’nook tusk from its thin leather strap like a child might a schoolbag on the way home.
He considered it with a smile, the voices warning of a potential episode falling silent. “I suppose you could call her my first infatuation. She was an explorer and adventurer, and yes, she was beautiful. I thought so, anyway. I was young and saw a lot in her that I wished, you know, I wished I could be like her in some ways. She was strong, focused, and determined. I…let’s just say I was none of those things. That said, I was lucky to have known her—luckier still that she had enough faith in me when I came back to her for help that she didn’t spin me around and kick me out the door.”
“She does sound wonderful, but you should not speak about her as if she is gone. Maybe someday you will meet again, have a third chance.” Rainne wrapped both hands around his arm as they walked. “Forgive me, Salla, but it is so strange to hear you actually tell me things. Afa will not believe it.” Her laughter was almost giddy. “Now, something else. Tell me something else!”
He did. He told her of the Mayla Rose, of Kitayne and her clandestine plot to intervene in the kidnapping of the Gran Senji of the Majdi Order, only to kidnap the Gran Senji to further her own ambitions. He even shed light upon the Eyes of the One, the mysterious power bound within him that had led him and Natke to the lost city of Tempusalist.
But as he started recounting the harrowing tale of his confrontation with Cron-jearre, the Thirteenth Paragon of Victus Al-Miriotica, he felt odd. It was like a slight shift in the polar axes of the world—just enough to throw his equilibrium off balance and keep it there. His legs shuffled and became alien appendages moving awkwardly underneath him, the connection between body and brain severed in an instant.
He looked to his left. In the blurry, washed-out landscape of his failing vision, he saw Rainne. Her lips moved frantically, eyes uncertain and afraid. She grabbed his shoulders to keep him from falling, but he couldn’t even sense her touch. Only numbness remained, and instead of silence came a shrill ringing sound somewhere off in the vast distance.
This was it, he knew. The end. As his thoughts became drowned in the haze of his dyi
ng mind, Salla did not feel the pain that had accompanied most every attack the Eyes of the One had delivered upon him. Perhaps that was the gift Ulong had given him. Not a cure as he had hoped, but instead a quiet death bereft of suffering.
He felt grateful, and then he felt nothing at all.
9
He swam through the darkness, fading in and out of awareness. All thoughts of concern had given way to acceptance. He at last felt ready to let go of his connection to everything he had known in life, everything he held dear, ready to slip into the vaunted hereafter where the dead go to henceforth guide the living. But something was wrong. Everything felt like little more than a dream, an experience from which he would inevitably wake.
Was he experiencing anything at all, or were those flashing lights like lightning bursts within a thunderhead nothing more than visualizations of the last gasps from a dying consciousness? Was his inner spirit witnessing the end of its physical reality from somewhere within? Other images came to him in a rush from out of the void, sights, sounds and feelings cascading over him like a waterfall. Everything was immediately familiar. Why shouldn’t it be, he thought? He had seen, heard, and felt it all firsthand.
Salla saw the world upside down for but a second before splashing into the cold, infinite waters of the ocean, a dark memory of his expulsion from the ranks of the Mayla Rose. Then he was with Natke again in their island paradise retreat, feeling her gentle touch and the cocoon of warmth her presence had wrapped him in during those last days they shared together. It brought the first pang of regret to the forefront of his consciousness, the first point in his life to which he wished he could return. But a second later, Natke was gone, transformed somehow into the woman responsible for his current state of subexistence.
Had Kitayne not covertly orchestrated her own kidnapping of the Gran Senji from underneath the syndicate of Gargazant Ikahn’s own kidnappers, he never would have been dumped over the side of the Mayla Rose, never would have gone in search of the Eyes of the One. He would still be alive.